


Nobody Like Us

by red-catmander (maximum_overboner)



Series: Ad Meliora [4]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: A nice sweet fluffy time.... And breaking a guy's legs, Dark Comedy, F/M, Gen, Just a nice sweet fluffy time, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29930370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/red-catmander
Summary: A routine job, an unfamiliar city and the best company he could ask for.
Relationships: Tybalt Leftpaw/Player Character
Series: Ad Meliora [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666561
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Nobody Like Us

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like the rest of the fics i write play up how sweet tybalt is. and he totally is, don't get me wrong, but he IS still the arm of a clandestine organization not particularly known for its transparency... ;3c and that's a cute angle too, right?

There’s nowhere like Divinity’s Reach.

Time and war made sure of it. There was, and now there wasn’t.

Opinions on that fact varied from species to species, group to group, person to person. Tybalt Leftpaw prided himself on his ability to make good of any conversation and to leave it with, at the very least, an interesting memory. And that required adjustment. It required a rare skill in a world so consumed with violence.

It required reading the room.

Which was why, when asked his opinion, he made a point to state the obvious and only the obvious, changing his tone to match the energy of the company he kept. When asked by bandits, kept as a hostage at the camp for three days before they came to like him so much that they set him free with a portion of dried meat and a bottle of terrible wine, he scoffed. When asked by a Sylvari— nude and still damp with the dew of the mother-tree— he tried and failed to make it sound wonderful as he hauled cargo for coppers, arm searing. When asked by the Seraph he processed endlessly through the Order he said it with an admiration that grew less begrudging by the year. But the company changed. And their opinions, and his own, changed. So he saved himself the trouble and stuck to the facts, letting people stew in whatever conclusions they had already inevitably drawn and letting them think he agreed.

There’s _nowhere_ like Divinity’s Reach.

Tybalt peered up at the endless ashlar walkways made white by the sun. He allowed himself the luxury of another fact, another truth he could roll in the palm to suit his needs

It’s a bitch to navigate.

He pulled out his map. He studied the interwoven sprockets of the districts, the concentric layout of the streets, ‘simple’. He couldn’t believe he missed the Citadel. Tybalt hummed as if he was taking in what he was seeing and put it in his pocket. He took out the map. He put it away. He did this three more times.

Tybalt stood in the shadow of the monumental arches that carried the upper city, panting in the heat. He found a food stall, tended by a human woman with gnarled hands. “Excuse me?”

She kneaded hard enough to shake the cart. “Mhmm?”

Tybalt took note of his size and stooped out of courtesy, curving his spine until his head was almost at his collarbone. “Have you seen another charr around here? I’m meeting someone and I think she’s lost.”

The woman spoke good-naturedly. “You think _she’s_ lost?”

“Heh, well…”

The woman dusted the flour from her hands, wiping them on her gown and leaving yet another set of white handprints. “Charr, charr… Come through now and then to pick up things from the market down the street, could you be more specific?”

“Sure. Female, grey and white-ish coat. Four brown horns, point up ‘n back.”

“Hm…”

“Underbite?” He brought his paw to his nose and pressed, squishing his face flat and sticking his jaw out. “Looks like an Elonian cat? Or, uh, kinda like a snow leopard?”

“Uh…”

“Colossal? Ten feet tall? Could have been on fire? Literally? Literally aflame?”

“Let’s see…”

“... Red robe?”

“Oh, her!” She shook her head, exasperated. “Yes, she was here. Saw her ten minutes ago. Thought she stuck out. Much too hot for robes like that. Second right, by the barber’s.”

“Thanks,” said Tybalt, handing over a few coppers. She handed him a wad of stuffed bread, moulded into the shape of a small fish with little raisin eyes, skewered on a stick. He took the second right and, to his relief, saw her, tucked in the ramshackle skeleton of a building. Holding a tiny stuffed pastry on a stick, shaped like a fish.

Their eyes met and, upon seeing they had brought the same gift, ate their own to save the trouble of sentiments. He gave her a big wave and she nodded, relief simmering under a stuck face.

“Tybalt! You’re late,” Emberthroat griped.

“Emberthroat! You’re waiting on the wrong street,” Tybalt teased.

She knit her brows. “Grenth’s Plaza?”

“No, Dwayna’s Plaza.”

“If I’m at the wrong place...”

“Because I got confused, waited at Melandru’s Plaza for twenty minutes and assumed you did the same,” he admitted. “Not really a place for misotheists. At least this gig isn’t particularly time-sensitive.”

“Or particularly important,” she scoffed. “We’re here to fight elder dragons, not stop petty theft.”

“‘Creative uses of funds’ hurts the organization and we can’t have people getting cocky at a time like this. Just a simple in-and-out. Hey, do you want to tell the Preceptors we couldn’t navigate a single street or should I?” He looked at the couple passing them, agog, and responded with a smile. They scuttled away, nearly tripping. “Oh yeah,” he muttered to himself, “the fangs. Or— or, Em, hear me out— would you prefer to return a banquet and a parade in our honour?”

Emberthroat pushed herself off the wall, dusting the dirt from her robe and adjusting her chest plate. “I’m not the ‘parade’ type.”

“More parade for me. Ever been here?”

“Twice,” she said. “But briefly, up top. What do you make of the place?”

“Nowhere like it,” he said, almost on autopilot.

He was unsure, exactly, what opinion he was facilitating. Her gaze wandered from house to house, stall to stall, fetid alley to crumbling home. Then to the Upper City luxuriating in the sun. Her eyes met his and he gathered.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at the squalor around them, sloping houses leaning on one another like drunks. “Not a monarchist, huh?”

She laughed a little. “Why send us?”

Tybalt beamed. “‘Us’? Thank you for including me in your ego-trip.”

“I— you’re welcome— they’d be better sending in humans. Before you arrived children congregated around me like a Wintersday tree. Stroking my fur and asking if I like catnip.”

“You do. You dust it on our straw when you think I’m not looking.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” she said, quickly. She glanced above them, to the woman peering out of her window. “The point I’m trying to make is that we’re not subtle. I really don’t like this.”

“Neither do I,” Tybalt admitted. “But we’re just messengers. It’s a good sign, I s’pose. Means they think we can handle ourselves.”

“Or want us out of their hair for a while. A broken leg is a broken leg, charr assailant or no. If the Order wants to indulge in power plays with its suppliers, fine, but I resent that we have to be drawn into them. The Seraph really couldn’t handle this?”

Tybalt shook his head. “If they pull this guy in he’d be out in an hour. Nephew to a noble. Old, old family. Provided we do what we came here to do and _only_ that, they’ll look the other way.”

There was that look again, accompanied by a twist of the lip. _“Hm.”_

“Remember,” he chided.

“Yes,” she sighed, “no lethal magic. I remember the docket.”

“I can’t believe they put that in there. I’ve read thousands of those things over the years and they’ve never had to specify that. They assume you know.”

“I didn’t mean to electrocute that one to death,” she protested, “it just happened. He threatened to turn me into a coat. Death threats are one thing—”

“Fun for cubs and adults alike, of course.”

“— But he didn’t know we were… You know.”

Tybalt looked coy. “Dating?”

“Spies,” she glowered.

“Oh.”

“He thought that was appropriate to say over a light dinner.”

“I know, dear,” said Tybalt, having heard this complaint a dozen times and finding it just as amusing as the first.

“Not even a nice coat,” she continued, still angry, “a coat!”

“I’m sure if you were captured by the enemy, killed, skinned and worn as a fashion statement,” Tybalt said, rubbing a tuft of fur between her neck and her shoulder, “you would be great at keeping out moisture.”

“Thank you,” she huffed, experiencing some sort of catharsis. “You as well. If we’re cornered and slain I’m sure your fat, if properly stored, could keep a small family unit fed for several months in a cold climate.”

He tittered coquettishly. “Oh _stop,_ we’re at work.”

She shook her head, indulging in that sort of talk that horrified the other races back at base but inspired their kin to holler at them to get a room. “The candles alone—”

“Stop,” he laughed, flapping his hand, “you’re embarrassing me! We were ordered to incapacitate him. It was carnage. That was the second-worst dinner party I’ve ever been to.”

She threw her claw up, making an exasperated noise. “‘Incapacitate’? What’s more ‘incapacitating’ than death?”

“That was bad enough, but the buffet—”

“You know how I get around assorted hams and breads. And I refuse to take criticism on this. You blew up that norn.”

He thumped his prosthetic arm. “It builds character!”

“You pasted her leg across the mountain— we’re not doing this, we’ll have time to argue later. As ‘easy’ as this job is, I went to the trouble of taking precautions.” She opened her coat, gesturing to various pouches within.

“Are those arranged alphabetically?”

“What? Shut up. Yes. Enough dried rations to last us two days along with a map, compass and forged documents, not that I think anyone will _believe_ us, considering where we are... What did you bring?”

“A pistol,” he said, “the gas, money and two flutes.”

“The money will, at least— what?”

“Carnival is in town,” Tybalt shrugged, finding that sufficient.

“... _And?”_

“We’ll pose as performers.”

“Good grief, would it kill you to stop ‘fixing’ plans for once in your—?”

He looked severe. “In the event of an emergency, I have two wooden flutes hidden on my body. If we’re truly scorched we can tie them together with string and use them as nunchucks but, hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

“I can’t play the flute.”

“We will pose as performers, not _good_ performers.”

“Where are our rations of poison?”

“I traded them for flutes.”

“That poison was for us. We may be surrounded and have to commit suicide.”

“They’re very versatile instruments. Do you want your flute now, or later?”

Emberthroat looked at him.

“Now, or later?”

“No, I did hear you.”

“Later it is.” He nodded, beckoning for her to follow. “Let’s roll. We’ve got some kneecaps to shatter.”

Emberthroat groaned, her claws clattering on the cobbles as she followed. “It’s strange, Tybalt. Our cause doesn’t sound so noble when you put it like that.”

Their walk was a mercifully short one, keeping to the dark of the walls and towers, following the shadow-patterns of balustrades that slept on the hot cobbles of the street. They came to a stop at a house, worn and weathered, but perfectly plain and usual. They peered at it from around the corner. “Here it is,” said Tybalt.

“Look at how normal it is,” said Emberthroat. “It stinks of crime.”

“How’re we handling this?”

“Inefficiently,” Emberthroat grumped, “we’re out here talk—”

An adorable human child, hair bound in pigtails and eyes dewy with innocent curiosity, tugged at the hem of her robes. “Are you two spies?”

“Drop the gas,” Emberthroat hissed.

“I will not,” Tybalt frowned.

“Do it, drop the gas, we’ve been compromised.”

“We can’t drop the gas on every human child that asks us that question, they don’t know any better. Two is already too many. Ahem.” Tybalt got on a knee to look her in the eye. He raised his voice in pitch, into a frequency she could pick out with her two sad, flabby ears. “We’re not spies,” he said, kindly. “We’re charr. We’re tourists.”

“You’re visiting?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she said, believing him immediately. “Okay. You’re not so scary.”

He chuckled. “I do my best. It was brave of you to talk to us.”

“It was?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of human kids have the guts.”

Emberthroat sank to one knee. “Hearts and minds… Hello, little one. Are you lost?”

“Hello,” she said. “What’s wrong with your face?”

 _“Well,”_ said Tybalt, “ _it was nice meeting you, gotta go, bye, bye kid, bye, see you, bye—”_

“But I’m n—”

_“Bye, see you, every rumour you heard about charr eating kids alive is true, bye, see ya—!”_

She was gone, scrambling down the street, hurtling around the corner as if thrown.

“I was going to commend you on how great you are with cubs,” said Emberthroat, “but then you threatened to kill and eat her.”

“Yeah,” said Tybalt, sheepish. “I might have panicked.”

“Really? It didn’t show.” Emberthroat, now certain they were alone, gestured to the door. “Let’s get this over with. Age before beauty.”

Tybalt cracked his knuckles. “Time to put that Whispers training to good use.”

He made a running start and kicked the door off its hinges.

“I was going to propose double-checking the address,” said Emberthroat, walking calmly behind, “but I suppose this is fine.”

 _“Your time is up, C—_ he’s not here.”

“Check under the door. You may have barrelled him over with your stealthy screaming and kicking.”

“Uh…”

Tybalt, feeling awkward, actually checked.

“... Nope, nothin’.”

He dipped his head to enter, squeezing through the door frame, softly bonking a horn on the way in.

“Be mindful of where you’re going, Tyb—”

Emberthroat smacked a horn on a wooden beam, sending a cold, dire pain through her head.

_“— Augh!”_

The room was dark, lit only at their feet from the sun that crept in behind them. Scents rose, clung to the corners of the room and tumbled down again, slowly. Dust, sweat, metal, smoke and, most of all, gunpowder.

They turned their snouts up to the mazy air. Emberthroat spoke first. “That way.”

Tybalt did, huffing. He followed an invisible ribbon of smell, tracking it across the room. Emberthroat spoke with earned authority.

“The smoke is all wax,” she said, keeping her voice low. “These candles were extinguished recently. Five, ten minutes. He’s closeby.”

“If he’d left ‘em on and bolted we’d have no way to pinpoint a timeframe.”

“Exactly. He’s an idiot. And knew someone was coming.”

“Watch for traps. No fire.”

Emberthroat raised a claw, keeping the other on the dagger in her robe.

Tybalt set to work, peering through the various shelves and drawers. He brought a half-assembled gun to his eye, peering down its sights, and let out a long, low whistle. “Not half bad. If that crate’s filled with stuff like this his debt will be squared up in no time.”

Emberthroat advanced towards the stairs.

She peered at the rune that revealed itself at her feet.

ORE-FLUX-STREAM

She threw her hand off the dagger, bundled her coat over her head and hurled it away, chewing at the shoulder-strap of her breastplate as she did. She could see it clarify into red-orange slime in the corner of her eye, the buckles of her sandal-boots searing her ankles. The claw on a red, ruddy hand cut free the other strap before the inner layer of metal gave way. By the time it hit the floor it was a blistering puddle, melting a hole through the wood. As she gasped, Tybalt clawed at the leather of his belts, the buckles branding his skin. With her help it was done, but not without a wad of buckle stuck to his muscle.

“You should have taken care of yours first,” she scowled, looking at the glob cooling in his thigh, the stench of burnt hair and flesh permeating the room.

“I’m fine,” he said, playing it off, squeezing the words through his teeth.

“You’re not fine, your leg. Your paw!”

“Oh, like it’s getting any worse.”

They heard a heavy thump from upstairs, hurried impacts that moved to the corner of the room. She bolted to the stairs, half-nude and half-blind. The emptiness in her hands struck her, as well as the difficulty of casting without a conduit.

“Tyb,” she seethed, her dignity gone. “Hand me my flute.”

He did, like a baton, running just behind.

“If I’m missing a single teat I swear I’ll— _you!”_

A scrawny man, with the look that only men who were in too deep carried, turned to them, his leg half-out the window. Before he could clear the gap and vanish into the myriad alleyways of the Reach, Emberthroat slashed her makeshift sceptre across the air, conjuring a clumsy boulder of ice, pulling it backwards and sending him hurtling back into the room with a thump. He clutched his ribs, whining.

“Well,” said Tybalt, pressing his foot to his chest, “that was easy.”

Emberthroat snorted like an upright bull, horns scraping the ceiling. She threw an arm up and marched downstairs, holding her burns.

“You, Cavan,” said Tybalt, applying pressure, “haven’t been keeping your end of the bargain. We gave you an extra month to fulfil that shipment and gave you a week for the refund. Neither has appeared. Care to explain? Or do you want to cut all the niceties and get straight to the beating?”

Cavan’s eyes widened and he burbled his words. “Oh no.”

“Yeah,” said Tybalt. “‘Oh no’. We could have seized your goods, gave you a shiner and went on our way. But you destroyed your own stock and nearly killed us. First time running one of these things, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Gift from your uncle?”

“... Yeah.”

“Spent all the gold on wine and women, eh?”

“Yeah…”

Tybalt squatted, arm draped over a knee. His advice was as sincere as it was avuncular. “You can’t flee from the Order,” he chided. “Period. But, if you try, at _least_ use a fake name when you buy a place on a ship, yeah?”

“I know,” Cavan mumbled. He clutched his ribs, mewling, silk shirt in strips around his arms. “It hurts,” he whined.

“Were the wine and women worth it, kid?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

Tybalt, caught off-guard, laughed heartily. He turned and called out of the room.

_“Hey, Em, I think I like ‘im!”_

Tybalt wiped his eye. Cavan managed a weak smile. “Enough to leave me and go?”

“Don’t push your luck, kid. Y’know, you’re honest for some half-baked con artist. Speaking of which, you’re looking a little too comfy down there.”

“I’m really not…”

“I think now is a good time to get some threats in.”

Tybalt’s warm, convivial tone hardened. He may have lacked the ruthless demeanour of a charr soldier but he liked to think he did a good imitation. “Cavan, you rat bastard, you move an _inch_ I will throw you out of that window of yours and pop you like a clay pigeon before you hit the ground. You see that partner of mine?”

From the way Cavan stared at him, at the broad beast with a burn almost as big as Cavan himself, it was a hell of an impression. “No.”

“Exactly. Your continued survival revolves around a few things. Care to guess what they are?”

Cavan stared up at him, whale-eyed.

“Emmy,” Tybalt chirped like he was calling her to dinner. “You good down there?”

Silence. Cavan’s lungs began to squash against his ribs.

“Yeah,” she barked. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I just— gimmie a minute.”

And the pressure was off.

“Pff. You’re a lucky, lucky man.”

“I don’t feel lucky.”

“You’ll see in hindsight. Call it a gift that'll age. Don't worry about saying thanks, or anything.”

“You made your point,” he whined. “Can you please—”

“No," Tybalt said firmly. "Not ‘til she gets back. But I appreciate the manners, don’t get much of that with people we’re, uh. Visiting.”

“So... what’s your deal?”

“Deal?”

“Yeah. ‘Good guard bad guard’?”

“I s’pose,” Tybalt conceded. “Hey, indulge me a second, who’s who?”

“Well, you threatened to shoot me and the ugly one broke my ribs—”

Tybalt kicked Cavan’s gut, drawing a brief, sharp squawk. “Ah, clumsy, clumsy me. Sorry.”

“You’re both bad guards,” Cavan blubbered, “when my uncle finds out he’ll—”

“What, unbleed your organs? Can’t bribe your way out of this one.”

“... Could I _try?”_

“Read the room, kid. Look, you’re getting off lightly here. Take the rap on the knuckle and get out of this life, you’re not really cut out for it.”

“What, and you are?”

Tybalt shrugged. “I’m open to critique. You know what we’re here for. Give it over and we’ll leave.”

Cavan looked intently at a gap in the floorboards like he could flatten himself and squeeze between them. He deflated.

“The chest under my bed. I keep a stash in there. Just take it and go.”

Tybalt peered under the bed and whistled. “Fancy! Too fancy. Suspiciously fancy. You trapped it.”

“There’s a— she hits _hard—”_

“She sure does,” said Tybalt, fondly.

“— A disarming mechanism underneath. Break the rune and you’re set. Same as downstairs.”

Tybalt carefully scooted it out with his foot, found the rune and, with a crack, shattered it. He rifled through the documents inside, dusted off his paws and raised a brow. “So you bought a rune that’d burn pretty much anyone coming up those stairs…”

“Yeah. Melts metal. Asura sell them for cheap in the market.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I want someone to do my job but stupid and worse— and laid the same trap up here?”

“Correct,” said Cavan.

“The rune that melts metal?”

“You got it.”

“Y’know, when you’re burned, you drop the hot thing. By the time they get upstairs…”

Cavan held his head in his hands. “There’d be nothing to melt. Ugh, I’m so bad at this…”

”You might as well load that chest with talcum powder, it’d do more. ‘Whuh-oh, all my stuff is melting, time to pick it up with my paws and drag it up a flight of stairs’, please, there’s not a person alive who’d—”

Emberthroat, who had left, cooled the puddle of metal that used to be her breastplate with some furious conjuring, picked up the slab and returned just in time to whip it across Cavan’s face with an incredibly loud clunk.

“Bastard! Bastard!”

“Cavan?” said Tybalt, sincerely. “I’d like to apologize. I made some assumptions and that’s on me.”

“Bastard! You stupid bastard!”

“Remember the docket,” said Tybalt, watching this unfold. “No killing this one.”

“You pink little rat,” she roared, punctuating it with another blow. “You nearly killed us over a hundred gold!”

“They’re gonna have to add ‘reconstituted metal’ to the banned objects list. Do _not_ envy the desk-jockey they got to cover for me. That salary is not enough.”

“I will crack you like an egg!”

“She will. I’ve seen it.”

_“It’s horrible!”_

“It’s horrible.”

Cavan shed a tooth, wiping it from his mouth. “Are you… Oh, gods, are you going to kill me?”

“Oh no,” said Tybalt. “No, no, not at all, no.”

Emberthroat picked up Cavan by the feet and whipped him against the wall like a dusty rug on a railing. _“Look— at what you did— to his leg!”_

“Well,” he admitted, “not intentionally.”

There’s nowhere like Divinity’s Reach.

Time and war made sure of it. There was, and now there wasn’t.

And, Tybalt figured, watching his mate wring a human like a wet dish-rag, there weren’t many like them, either.


End file.
